Counties Support Plan to Reform State Indigent Legal Defense Fund

In anticipation of the State’s payment to counties for partial reimbursement of legal defense services, the New York State Association of Counties (NYSAC) reaffirms its support for Governor David Paterson’s proposal to provide more flexibility with the ILSF.

Governor Paterson has proposed as part of his 2009-10 Executive Budget a provision to provide counties and the City of New York with greater flexibility related to the ILSF. This year, a number of counties and their property taxpayers may not be reimbursed for costs incurred for providing legal defense for those who otherwise would not be able to afford an attorney.

The ILSF was created to partially offset counties’ costs when the State increased rates for assigned counsel. But in recent years, an increasing number of counties have failed to meet their Maintenance of Effort (MOE) as required under the Indigent Legal Services Fund (ILSF) and have become ineligible to receive their local allocation from the fund.

“The current MOE provision ties counties’ hands at a time when we need more flexibility to improve our own governments and budgets,” said NYSAC Executive Director Stephen J. Acquario. “Providing indigent legal defense is a responsibility that our counties take very seriously, but the existing system discourages providers of indigent defense to find efficiencies and presupposes spending more money means that counties are providing better defense services. The existing MOE is a ‘one size fits all’ approach that does not meet the unique needs of each community.”

To receive State reimbursement from the ILSF, a county must demonstrate, “with specificity,” a maintenance of effort (MOE) that states that there was no decrease in the total amount of local funds expended on indigent legal services. In the event this (MOE) is not met, the county loses 100 percent of their share of the ILSF, with those amounts reallocated to counties across the state.

“This funding structure does not allow for either efficiency improvements at the local level or anomalies that may arise from one or two high profile and expensive cases; and if a county spends one dollar less then last year, they lose one hundred percent of the ILSF,” said NYSAC President Sarah Purdy, Yates County Administrator.

County leaders are urging the State Legislature to include the reforms advanced by Governor Paterson in the final State Budget that would modify the current annual MOE requirement so that the state would use a county’s three year average local defense expenses to determine reimbursement.

“The Governor’s plan directly addresses this issue, while ensuring that state funding will still be available for the indigent legal services fund,” said Purdy.